I know the arguments. There’s a debate. It’s nuanced and inspires strong feelings both in native speakers and learners/CSOL speakers. But the debate was ended by the existence of one …
Woody Duh. 
May I ask if ‘Duh Tyzz-jiun’ is a standardised Taiwanese pron?
I don’t even know what kind of romanization system that is…
How do one get from 杜紫軍 to Duh, Tyzz-jiun?
PY: DU,ZI-JUN
TY: DU, ZIH-JYUN
WG: TU,TZU-CHUN
ZYII: DU,TZ-JIUN
wtf is Tyzz???
There’s a host of these really spectacularly ad hoc spellings in the government. A few of my favorites:
張盛和 Chang Sheng-ford
張家祝 Chang Chia-juch
林中森 Lin Join-sane
李述德 Lee Sush-der
There are a few interesting legislators, too. My favorite is 費鴻泰 Fai Hrong-tai.
You should see some of the “creative” ways I’ve seen people, even those extremely fluent in English or other foreign languages, write their own addresses. 
Duh Tyzz-jiun looks like Gwoyeu Romatzyh, with a spelling error in the first syllable of the given name.
Hanyu Pinyin dù = Gwoyeu Romatzyh duh
Hanyu Pinyin zǐ = Gwoyeu Romatzyh tzyy
Hanyu Pinyin jūn = Gwoyeu Romatzyh jiun
For more information, please see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwoyeu_Romatzyh
It’s just not possible to not Spoonerise it and thence we have ‘Duh Jyzz-Tiun’.
Edit: that makes sense, Charlie Jack. It’s not an intuitive system, is it?
[quote=“hansioux”]I don’t even know what kind of romanization system that is…
How do one get from 杜紫軍 to Duh, Tyzz-jiun?
PY: DU,ZI-JUN
TY: DU, ZIH-JYUN
WG: TU,TZU-CHUN
ZYII: DU,TZ-JIUN
wtf is Tyzz???[/quote]
Worse. His English name is Woody.
Welcome to my world.
Amen to that.
Well, as someone who has fair Mandarin but very little Taiyu or Hakka, I assumed it was one of those.
I can see how it would be a good tool for remembering tones. That’s one of the probs with pinyin. It’s EVERYWHERE in China: on shopsigns, medicine labels, loads of stuff, but no tones. I guess that’s not important for a native speaker, but some info is lost for learners of the language.
[quote=“Ermintrude”]Well, as someone who has fair Mandarin but very little Taiyu or Hakka, I assumed it was one of those.
I can see how it would be a good tool for remembering tones. That’s one of the probs with pinyin. It’s EVERYWHERE in China: on shopsigns, medicine labels, loads of stuff, but no tones. I guess that’s not important for a native speaker, but some info is lost for learners of the language.[/quote]
nope, Duh’s a Late Immigrant from a juàncūn, like most of Ma’s other appointed officials. At least 13 of his appointed ministers are Late Immigrants. Duh’s just another one to that list.
TL (Holo): Tōo Tsí-kun
HL (Hakka): Tu55 Zii31-giun24
I’ve noticed the trend of funky names is more common with wealthy waishengren (not waisenren) or KMT cadres and their children who got advanced degrees from abroad before the mid-1980’s. I think a lot of them didn’t know any pinyin at all when they were getting their passports but had passable English skills, so they just used English to “spell” out their names. Ma Ying-jeou’s is quite interesting, but the rest are mostly massive failures.
DPP members tend to have much more run-of-the-mill (i.e. boring) spellings.
well, you see, when a man gets aroused, his penis becomes erect, and then at some point we call the climax, out of his penis comes…
well, you see, when a man gets aroused, his penis becomes erect, and then at some point we call the climax, out of his penis comes…[/quote]
wouldn’t that be tsiiiz?
Tyzz = the sound of a soluble aspirin dissolving in a glass of water.
Where the hell did he get the name Woody from; was Toy Story out when he came to office?
For her name-card, the abbess of a local Zen temple romanized her name using some program she found on the internet. I tried to explain to her that it had rendered her name into the Vietnamese pronounciation of the Chinese characters (starting with Thich rather than Shi), but she seemed not to comprehend that romanization could yield anything other than “English.”
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]There’s a host of these really spectacularly ad hoc spellings in the government. A few of my favorites:
張盛和 Chang Sheng-ford
張家祝 Chang Chia-juch
林中森 Lin Join-sane
李述德 Lee Sush-der
There are a few interesting legislators, too. My favorite is 費鴻泰 Fai Hrong-tai.
You should see some of the “creative” ways I’ve seen people, even those extremely fluent in English or other foreign languages, write their own addresses. [/quote]
Some alterations are in order:
張盛和 Chang Sheng-food
張家祝 Chang Chia-yuck
林中森 Lin Jo-insane
李述德 Lee Sushi-der
費鴻泰 Fai Wrong-tai.
Or: Fai Wrong-Taiya (occupation: hapless race driver)
tru dat. the mainland should also universally use traditional characters. simplified is TACK.
My god yes.
Jiantizi made sense (kind of) when you were dealing with hundreds of millions of illiterate peasants who just needed a working way to write things down. Today, even the farmers have cell phones. It takes no more effort to type 車 than 车, and one is much much nicer to look at.
Simplified Chinese looks like scribbling. That’s fine when you hand write, but printing it out on a billboard is to me the same as writing your store’s sign entirely in l3375p34k
“Welcome to ru7h kr155 5t8kh4us l0lz, I’ll take your order.”
Someone should invite sofun to this tread. 